Arse it continued

Wow, I seem to have well and truly divided the audience (so to speak).

Under the current student loan system, post-graduates are required to pay three thousand pounds up front every year. For this, I get a LOAN of three thousand pounds each year. I get no more funding in any shape or form.

Anything outside of this has to be privately funded. Other students get more money because they are either:

1. over 25
2. independent
3. parents themselves
4. on their first degree
5. children of less wealthy parents
6. released by the forces
7. in difficult circumstances

you get my drift right? Guess what, I fall into none of these categories.

Therefore, I need to find approximately 5 grand a year to survive. Hence why I work so hard on 4 jobs and study less than I should.

Arse it

Now I have a proper problem. Rent comes out on 26th of the month, and I just got paid.

I'm £70 short. Oh, and plus the gas and electric bill from the old house of £80.

Seriously, does anyone fancy sponsoring my education?

I've been working my guts out like a nutter, and I have a sneaking suspicion that work hasn't paid me for the 3 days holiday I took in the middle of my exams.

Bugger, shit, arse.

Anyone want to feed and house me when the landlord evicts me??

Postcard

I thought I'd share this with you. I'm not on holiday, instead I'm submerged in academic work for a coursework resubmission.

This however, I found last week at the cinema* while waiting to go in and see the film**

From me to you with love!

* funded by the boyfriend

** go and see You Don't Mess With The Zohan. I have never laughed so hard since Team America.

Fatigue

I'm in the middle of my third nightshift in a row, and my body is starting to feel it now.

Usually I have no problem sleeping during the day time, and in a way I find it more relaxing than sleeping at night. Sadly, because I've been on 'stand by' for shifts (i.e. I've said I'm available but the staff bank hasn't yet found me a ward) then work has been more than willing to ring me up in the middle of my sleep and book me onto a shift.

I know I can't really moan about it, since if they didn't ring me then I wouldn't have a shift, but it's really draining me now.

I can't get back to sleep after they've called, and it's cutting my sleep hours down by approximately a third.

Tomorrow (or rather today) I look forward to not getting up at lunchtime after 4 hours sleep.

I have the joy of a day at the outdoor activities centre on saturday (since it pays cash up front) and more voluntary work on Saturday night.

Very soon I will be exhausted. I can feel it creeping up on me now.

Sorry if this post doesn't make a lot of sense, but I think my brain is slowly leaking out of my ears.

A word of advice from me to you.

6 years ago today I got my A Level results.

I picked them up alone because my parents and I had argued the year before at AS results time.

I passed everyone stood outside the college drinking wine because they were going where they wanted to, while I knew deep down that I hadn't done enough to get my place at medical school.

Having opened the results envelope I sat and cried on some portakabin steps. My grades were nowhere near good enough to get into medical school, but I rang them anyway.

I'd been rejected without a second thought. No extenuating circumstances in my case, just sheer stupidity and rebellion in my sixth form years.

So I say this to everyone out there about to get their results:

I got CCCd at A2 level and I'm at medical school now with a degree and masters under my belt.

If you want it badly enough then don't let A Level results stop you.

Otherwise, I wish you all the best of luck tomorrow, and will no doubt be seeing some of you in September at fresher's week!

Infection Control Strikes Again

Having been away for a couple of weeks, I return to work to find that the normal computer keyboards had been replaced by 'dirt free' keyboards that flash at you when they need cleaning.



Nice idea, but very open to abuse.



All you need to do is switch it off and rub your hand across it and it stops flashing at you.



Pressure sensors are all well and good, but gently massaging your keyboard isn't going to stop it from harbouring skanky stuff.



Take a look here; its actually surprisingly nice to use...

Wow!

I'm sorry, I feel like I deserted all (two) of you by just vanishing into the ether.

I went away and did something incredibly worthy.

I feel a much better person for it and am desperate to do it again next year.

Ironically, without this blog I would have never become involved in it.

I'm now back into night shift mode and working my little socks off after my 'holiday' to try and increase my bank balance from £1.82 to something a little more compatible with food shopping.

Equally, I'm trying to see just how little money I can actually spend in a week.

Last night I did a supermarket shop on £6.60 and was a walking advert for own brand food. Sure, it might not help my diet, but it will help my finances.

So therefore, I am going to keep a cost diary of all the money I spend on food and necessities for the immediate future to see if I can survive on pittance.

Wish me luck!

*Takes a Bow*

I think I might be 38% a doctor.

I say this because I knew I had a resit of a piece of coursework to do from the beginning of the year.

However I passed last week's exams and everything else throughout the year.

Which means finances and resit allowing, I shall be starting the third year of medical school in September.

I thank you!

And Thank You!

Dear guys and girls,

Thank you so much to all of you who have volunteered your spare computers to me.

I'm touched, it means a lot to me.

I managed to get another PC from a 'global supplier of personal computers' if you get my drift, but not without having multiple arguments with them about the definition of a multimedia PC*.

My boyfriend and I made a deal whereby he bought the computer and I pay him back whenever I can.

Had I not been so desperate I would have bought one online and used discount codes for NHS staff etc.

Sadly it was the day before my written papers and I was really really desperate.

 

 

*for the love of god, if the package you're selling is a multimedia one, as advertised by you, you need to include speakers. Especially if you don't have the advertised monitor which does, and the replacement doesn't.

Less fear more dread

So the exams are over and done with.

Results are out later in the week, although no-one seems entirely sure of the date.

The problem now is nightmares.

Not just normal bad dreams, but medical school and exam related. And strange.

For example, the most recent one had me failing my OSCE because I couldn't manage to eskimo roll in a kayak. Also, when I was scaring off the brown bears that were trying to eat him, I forgot that I had to throw a silver saucepan in the water instead of a steel one.

I've always had quite vivid dreams, but this just takes the biscuit.

Add to all of this the fact that I'm moving house before Thursday, and you get a strangely stressed Merys.

Oh, and next week I go on holiday. Not a paid holiday, but a voluntary one, where I am doing something very very noble.

I will probably come back more exhausted than I went!

Wish me luck (and less sleepless nights!)